E 

,■^74 







Class 
Book 






ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



iili| Snminl Hiih §illpns of Jnsloii, 



ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLA- 
RATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 



JULY 4, 1885, 



THOMAS J. GAEGAN^. 




PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 

MDCGCLXXXV . 



% 



ORATION 



DELIVERED BErOBE THE 



iHi| SnmttH niih §llhm$ nf Insluir, 



ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLA- 
RATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 



JULY 4, 1885, 



THOMAS J. GARGAK. 




PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 



MDCCCLXXXV 







CHURCHI LL* 
BOSTON. 



W«8t. r-ea. Hlfli. So'^ 



CITY OF BOSTON. 



In Board of Aldermen, July (5, 1885. 
Resolved, That the thanks of the City Council are due 
and are hereby tendered to Thomas J. Gargan, Esq., for 
his able, interesting, and eloquent Oration on the occasion 
of the one hundred and ninth anniversary of American 
Independence, and that he be requested to furnish a copy 
of the same for publication. 

Passed. Sent down for concurrence. August 27, came 
up concurred. Approved by the Mayor, September 2, 

1885. 

A true copy. 

Attest : 

AUG. N. SAMPSON, 

City Glerk. 



ORATION. 



o>»<c 



M7\ Mayor and Fellow- Citizens of Boston : — 

One hundred and nine years ago this morning 
George the Third was King of Great Britain 
and Ireland and of the British Colonies in [N^orth 
America; yet, before the setting of the sun on 
that day the fairest portion of his ^orth Ameri- 
can colonists had forsworn their allegiance, and 
declared their independence. That proclamation of 
independence they made good by seven long and 
painful years of unequal war. We rejoice and 
congratulate each other that we have lived to see 
the auspicious opening of another Independence 
Day. The large audience assembled here; the 
multitudes that have suspended their ordinary 
labors and fill the streets of this great city, and 
of every city, town, and hamlet in the several 
States and territories of the Union; the thousands 
of faces aglow with joy and sympathy, — attest 
and proclaim that the day and the events which 
it commemorates have left a deep impression in 
our hearts, and that this generation of Americans 



6 ORATION. 

has not forgotten the teachings of the fathers. 
It is fitting and appropriate that, on the anni- 
versary of such a memorable day in our annals, 
we should indulge somewhat in retrospection. 
The English-speaking people have had two great 
epochs in their history which materially afifected 
their liberties, — not only their liberties, but the 
liberties and governments of the civilized world. 
The first epoch was in the early part of the 
thirteenth century, when the barons of England 
determined to resist the doctrine of the divine 
right of kings, and the assumption that the 
king could do no wrong. Several conferences 
had been held with King John, and finally the 
barons assembled at Saint Paul's, in London, 
where Stephen Langton, Archbishop* of Canter- 
bury, who had been appointed by the pope to 
that see, despite the oj)position of the king, 
called them to order, and read to them, and 
commented upon the provisions of the Great 
Charter of England. They answered by loud 
acclamations of approval, and Langton admin- 
istered the oath by Avhich they bound themselves 
to each other " To conquer or die in defence of 
their liberties." The terms of the charter were 
at fii'st indignantly refused by King John. lie 



JITLY4,1885. 7 

exclaimed, after hearing it read, " They might 
as well have demanded my crown. " But the 
assemblage at Stamford, in Easter week of the 
year' 1215 of the barons, and two thousand 
knights, their esquires and followers, with Robert 
Fitzwalter at their head, and the march to and 
occupation of London by the barons, brought 
the king to a sense of the real condition of 
existing affairs, and a time and place were ap- 
pointed for a conference. At Kunnymede the 
king met the barons. 

On one side stood Fitzwalter and the majority 
of the barons and nobility of England ; on the 
other side the king, and eight bishops and fifteen 
gentlemen, as his trusty advisers ; and there the 
king most unwillingly signed the great charter of 
English liberties, — signed for you and for me and 
for all men. Those liberties are now the common 
property of all nations. The charter provided that 
the subject should be secure in his person, liberty, 
and property; that he should not be deprived of 
either without due process of law; that the courts 
should no longer follow the person of the king, 
but be held in some certain place ; confirmed to 
all cities, boroughs, and towns the enjoyment of 
their ancient liberties according to the terms of 



8 ORATION. 

their charters, and reaffirmed the right of trial 
by jory. Looking down six centuries of time, 
enjoying as we do the full blessings of liberty, 
we can appreciate the importance of that day's 
meeting at Kunnymede. There not only King 
John, but all kings were, for the first time, de- 
feated by the people ; there the first real battle 
was fought; there the first real victory won. The 
principles embodied in the charter were not new. 
The English people were simply demanding that 
the king should observe the prerogatives of the 
fathers which a succession of kings had gradually 
usurped. Though the charter had been signed, 
the battle was not ended. It was not supposed 
that its terms would be cheerfully observed by 
King John, who believed that it had been wrung 
from him by force. Yet he was too diplomatic 
to show his displeasure openly; and, while he 
appeared to conform, he secretly intrigued and 
endeavored to nullify the provisions of the charter, 
^or were his successors any the less tenacious 
of what they considered their kingly rights. It 
required no less than thirty-eight successive rati- 
fications to give the provisions of the charter the 
full force and efiect of law. But the people 
deeming therein was the expression of their just 



JULY 4, 1885. 9 

rights the great charter prevailed, and was the 
precursor of the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which marked the second great epoch 
in the history of English-speaking people. As 
the great charter was the dawn, so the Declara- 
tion was the full noon of Liberty's day. 

From Kunnymede to Philadelphia was five and 
a half centuries, — centuries full of toil and trouble 
and battle for the right. Every privilege which 
we enjoy has been obtained by strife. The strife 
and battles are not equally distributed. One 
generation battles through all its life for a prin- 
ciple; the next enjoys the fruits of the battles 
in peace, and too often undervalues the sacrifices 
of its predecessors. So, during those centuries, in 
England there were alternate periods of battle and 
peace to preserve and maintain the great charter, 
and to acquire the still further right of the people 
to assemble in parliament and make their own 
laws. One of the advantages which accrued from 
the l^orman conquest was the insistance of the 
right of local self-government, which the N^ormans 
brought from home, and to which they clung with 
great tenacity. That custom was, after the last 
mass on Sunday, and the congregation were dis- 
missed from religious service, to assemble on the 



10 ORATION. 

common or green in front of the chnreh, and 
discnss the questions of new roads, local rates, 
and taxes, and all matters appertaining to the 
material welfare of the people of the parish. 
Here we find the first trace of that democratic 
institution which spread through many parts of 
England, and which the colonists brought over 
with them to Massachusetts, and which was the 
origin of, and is known in our day as, the Xew 
England town-meeting. The Massachusetts Bay 
colonists modified the Norman town-meeting to 
this extent: they attempted to establish a kind of 
theocracy, — a government of Church and State. 
In the Plymouth colony, as a condition of receiv- 
ing the franchise, the candidate must have been 
of "sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox 
in the fundamentals of religion." The govern- 
ment Avas a strange admixture of the Old and 
the New Testament, and a combination of the 
Hebrew and the English common law. But the 
later colonists brought with them substantially 
the government by town-meeting, — the germ of 
our whole system of democratic government. 

The events Avhich led up to the American 
Revolution and the Declaration of Independence 
have been so often repeated by the great orators 



JULY 4, 1885. 11 

of the Republic, — and great they were; our poets 
have sung of them in majestic verse; our writers 
have lovingly given us all the details and the 
inner lives of the principal actors in that great 
dramatic epoch of our history : so, on each re- 
curring Fourth day of July, the story has for us 
a new interest, a fresh charm. We see, as it 
were, before us, in imagination, the ISTew England 
colonists landing at Plymouth and Massachusetts 
Bay; the men from the north of Ireland peo- 
pling I^ew Hampshire; the Quakers at Pennsyl- 
vania; Lord Baltimore and his English and Irish 
Catholic colony at Maryland; the Cavaliers in Vir- 
ginia, and the Carolinas and Oglethorpe at Georgia, 
— all brave, sturdy men, planting colonies that con- 
tinued to grow and flourish despite the indifference 
and neglect of the English government. " Owing her 
nothing, but through a wise and salutary neglect 
generous nature was suff'ered to take her own 
way to perfection." We see on the north and 
west the efforts of France to establish a new 
empire along the St. Lawrence and the gi-eat 
lakes; Champlain and Montmorenci, with intrepid 
courage and daring, by exploration and occupa- 
tion, extending the boundaries of ISTew France; 



12 ORATION. 

La Salle and Joliet discovering the Mississippi 
river from the north; and the final efforts of all 
the French commanders to push eastward the 
boundaries, until the clash of arms came which 
ended at Quebec in the death of Wolf and 
Montcalm, and forever ended the di'eam of the 
empire of 'New France on the Xorth American 
continent. 

With the peace of Paris the flag of England 
floated over a vast and princely domain, extend- 
ing from the frozen north to the Grulf of Mex- 
ico, from the Atlantic on the east to the Missis- 
sippi river on the west; yet the Te Deum had 
been scarcely finished at Saint Paul's, the pealing 
of the bells or the echoes from the salvoes of 
artillery at London ceased, in honor of the rati- 
fication of that treaty, when the king and his 
ministry began to dismember the empire which 
had cost them so much of blood and treasure to 
acquire. 

In 1763 George III. and his ministers talked of 
America as the brightest jewel in the British crown. 
But the Hanoverian King of England still believed 
with Louis XI Y., "I am the State;" and, without 
examination of the colonial charters, he demanded 



JULY4,1885. 13 

that Parliament should tax the colonists for the 
expenses of the late war; but the king had yet 
much to learn of the temper and character of 
his American subjects. The days of Iving- John 
and the divine rights of kings had long since 
vanished. Kumors of the attempted imposition of 
taxes by the British Parliament had crossed the 
seas, and early in 1764, at the May town-meeting 
in Faneuil Hall, before it was known that the 
stamp act had passed, Samuel Adams read these 
instructions from Boston to her rei^resentatives : 
" There is no room for delay if taxes are laid 
upon us in any shape without our having a legal 
representation where they are laid. Are we not 
reduced from the character of free subjects to 
the miserable state of tributary slaves? We claim 
British rights, not by charter only; we ai*e born 
to them. Use your endeavors that the weight 
of the other !North American colonies may be 
added to this province, that by united application 
all may obtain redress." We know how* futile were 
the efibrts of the provinces to obtain redress. It 
did seem, upon the repeal of the stamp act, that 
the British ministry had a lucid interval, and were 
preparing to adopt a statesman-like policy. It 
was a brief interval, indeed, and the breach, 



14 ORATION. 

gradually widened; the British House of Commons 
refused with scorn even so much as to receive 
petitions from the colonies of Connecticut, Rhode 
Island, Virginia, and Carolina, remonstrating 
against the passage of unjust tax laws. Such 
being the temper of the British Parliament the 
colonists had no alternative but resistance. 

In 1765 the delegates from nine colonies met at 
Kew York. From South Carolina came the mes- 
sage: "There ought to be no New England man, 
no New Yorker known on the continent, but all of 
us Americans." The people did not feel that they 
were rebelling against authorities or law^; they be- 
lieved that the crown, the ministry, and the parlia- 
ment were violating their ancient charters. They 
wxre not refusing to pay a just proportion of a 
war debt; they wanted to assess that debt upon 
their own people, according to the local laws and 
usages of the colonies, or to have representation 
in the general Parliament. The colonists had few 
friends in England; there w^ere Chatham and Fox, 
Col. Barre and Burke, — a brave minority in Par- 
liament, — wdio seemed to compi-ehend the gravity 
of the situation, and the magnitude of the task 
the king and his ministers had undertaken. In 
vain did Mr. Bui'ke plead for reconcihation with 



JULY 4, 1885. 15 

America. Addressing the House of Commons lie 
said : " The use of force alone is but temporary ; 
it may subdue for a moment, but it does not 
remove the necessity of subduing again, and a 
nation is not governed which is perpetually to be 
conquered." Mr. Burke subsequently moved the 
resolution, that the colonies ought to have repre- 
sentation in the High Court of Parliament, and, 
finding all his eiforts voted down, concludes: "I 
have this comfort, that in every stage of the 
American affairs I have steadily opposed the 
measures that have produced the confusion, and 
may bring on the destruction, of this empire. I 
have gone so far as to risk a proposal of my 
own. If I cannot give peace to my country, I 
give it to my conscience." 

The wisest statesman and philosopher of his 
time, whose fame has outlived that of all his 
contemporaries, foresaw that war was inevitable if 
the king and ministry persisted. George HI. was 
honestly consistent in two things: he cordially 
hated the North American colonists and the Cath- 
olics. Appended to Lord Brougham's " Biographi- 
cal Sketches of Lord I^^orth" are some autograph 
notes of the king, which give us an insight to 
his character. " The times certainly require," 



16 ORATION. 

writes the king, " the concurrence of all who 
wish to prevent anarchy. I have no wish but 
the prosperity of my own dominion; therefore I 
must look upon all who would not heartily assist 
me as bad men, as well as bad subjects." He 
reasons : " I wish nothing but good, therefore 
every man who does not agree with me is a 
traitor and a scoundrel." And in this category 
he placed all his I^^orth American colonists, as 
well as the great author of " Keflections on the 
Revolution in France." We can see at this dis- 
tance of time, and in the present light, that 
reconciliation was impossible. George III. con- 
sidered himself anointed by a divine commission, 
therefore his rebellious subjects were to be flogged 
into submission; and that he had the support of 
his country is shown by the address in favor 
of coercing the colonies, which was carried in 
Parliament by a vote of 304 to 105 in the 
Commons and by 104 to 29 in the House of 
Lords. We had as few friends in 1775 in 
Parliament as we had in the dark days of 1862, 
when a long list of fifty-one dukes, noble lords, 
marquises, and members of Parliament subscribed 
millions of dollars for the bonds of the Southern 
Confederacy, — that the American idea of govern- 



JULY4,1885. 17 

ment founded upon manhood suffrage might be 
destroyed. The vote of Parliament meant war, 
and, as Patrick Henry predicted, " The next 
breeze from the ISTorth brought to Virginia the 
clash of resounding arms." The Continental 
Congress was called together at Philadelphia. 
They assembled not m pomp and power, as did 
the barons at Kunnymede; yet were no less 
determined. Two engagements had been fought 
during the sitting; the armies were in the field, 
and many yet hoped for reconciliation. The 
debates in Congress were upon matters of serious 
import to the colonies. No wiser, more patri- 
otic, or braver men were ever gathered together 
than the men of the Continental Congress. To 
test the sense of that Congress, on the 7th day 
of June, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, of Yirginia, 
arose in his place, and offered this resolution: 
" .Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and 
of right ought to be, free and independent 
States; that they are absolved from all alle- 
giance to the British Crown, and that all politi- 
cal connection between them and the State of 
Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved, 
and that a plan of confederation be prepared and 
transmitted to the respective colonies for their 



18 ORATION. 

consideration and approbation." In that resolution 
was epitomized the Declaration of Independence; 
it was adopted on the 11th of June, and two 
committees appointed, — one on the Declaration of 
Independence, the other to prepare Articles of 
Union. 

At the head of the Committee on Declaration 
was Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, then in his 
thirty-third year, and the author of the great 
declaration of the rights of man. On the 28th day 
of June was achieved the great naval victory over 
Sir Peter Parker, at Charleston, and on the same 
day the Committee on the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence presented its report. As the delegates from 
Pennsylvania and l^ew York had not received 
their powers or instructions to vote for it, action 
was delayed until the 4th day of July. The vote 
was by colonies, each colony casting a single 
vote. It was a long and anxious day, and late 
in the evening John Hancock, President of the 
Continental Congress, announced that the decla- 
ration had been carried, and the Fourth of July 
became forever memorable and glorious in our 
annals. The JS^ew York delegation were not 
authorized to vote for independence until the 
9th of July, and did not sign until August 



JULY4,1885. 19 

2d. The Pennsylvania vote was by a minority 
of the whole delegation. The doctrine "that 
all men are created eqnal, and have certain in- 
alienable rights," had about it a touch of sub- 
limity. The doctrine " that government rests upon 
the consent of the governed" startled all Europe. 
"Audacious, foolhardy men," exclaim the states- 
men and philosophers of Europe, "to imagine that 
a government can be successful where all the 
people have a voice! Such a doctrine we might 
expect from the lips of Thomas Jefferson, youth- 
ful and inexperienced, and tinctured with all the 
heresies of France, where he so recently so- 
journed; and that radical Sam Adams, we are 
not surprised at finding him among the signers 
of the declaration. But what folly and madness 
have seized the conservative men of the colonies, 
that they dare trust their lives and property 
under such a form of government." At a later 
period Macaulay prophesied "that soon the poor 
in the United States, worse than another inroad 
of Goths and Yandals, would begin a general 
plunder of the rich." Scholars and pessimists 
have flouted universal suffrage, and condemned 
our great charter of the Fourth of July. Car- 
lyle blasphemously said, " Democracy will prevail 



20 ORATION. 

when men believe the vote of Judas as good as 
that of his Master." Yet, notwithstanding all 
these sneers and prophecies, this government has 
lived one century, and has entered into the second 
with more strength and vigor than any nation 
on the globe. Its public credit stands unchal- 
lenged; it has increased in wealth and population 
to a marvellous degree. 

During the first century of its existence it has 
witnessed the revolution of 1789 in France, the 
Consulate, the first empire, the Bourbon restora- 
tion, the destruction of the Bastile, and the revo- 
lution of 1830, Louis Philippe, and again the 
rising of " '48," the coup cVetat, the second 
empire and its fall, the Commune, and the present 
so-called Republic in France, the Carbonari in 
Italy, and the revolutions in Germany. And if 
England has escaped the war and misery of her 
continental neighbors it is for the reason that 
her statesmen, profiting by American experience, 
and noting the progress of events on this side 
of the Atlantic, have made immense concession 
to the popular will. Catholic emancipation, the 
repeal of the corn-laws, the reform act, the dis- 
establishment of the Irish Church, the doubling 
of the franchise, and the more recent bill, by 



JULY4,18 85. 21 

which more than 2,000,000 new votei-s have been 
added to the lists, — measures, all of them which 
were, when originally proposed, denounced as 
revolutionary, — have been adopted, and are now 
part of the constitution of the British empire; 
all of the so-called strong governments in each 
decade during the last half century having been 
advancing towards the doctrine of the American 
Declaration of Independence that "All govern- 
ment rests upon the consent of the governed." 
"When the fathers of this republic founded the 
government upon the right of the people as 
opposed to the doctrine of the divine right of 
kings, they wei'e not mere theorists and rash 
exi^erimentei's ; there must have been men in the 
Continental Congress who had thought seriously 
and soundly upon this question, — men not unfa- 
miliar with the teachings of the early philosophers 
and doctors; for Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great 
doctor, says "that the ruler has not power of 
making law, except in as much as he bears the 
person of the multitude." And Sir Thomas More, 
in spite of Henry YIII., maintained that the 
king held his crown by parliamentary title ; and 
Suarez taught " that whenever civil power is 
found in one man, or legitimate prince, by ordinary 



22 ORATION. 

right, it came from the people and community, 
either proximately or remotely; it cannot be other- 
wise possessed so as to be just." Bellarmine 
concludes: "Divine right gave the power to no 
particular man; it therefore gave the power to 
the multitude." The men of the Continental 
Congress were not Socialists or Communists; they 
recognized fully the rights of individual propeity, 
and had faith that the people would respect and 
protect these rights. Having once fully adopted 
the principles of the Declaration, the States in 
their Constitutions recognized the right of the 
people to participate. Maryland, which was the 
first of the colonies to grant civil and religious 
liberty, was the first State to proclaim universal 
suftrage, and to introduce the most democratic 
forms into her whole government. De Tocque- 
ville says: "When a nation begins to modify the 
elective qualification it may easily be foi-eseen 
that, sooner or later, all qualification Avill be 
abolished." It is useless, then, to discuss prob- 
lems concerning, and difficulties affecting, our 
form of government ujDon any other basis than 
that the people govern. It is fashionable and 
customary in our day, at social-science meetings, 
at the clubs and at conventions, to decrv uni- 



JULY4,1885. 23 

versal suifrage. But it is an established fact, 
and the people are the masters. Mr. Disraeli 
truthfully said, in " Vivian Grey," " The people, 
sir, are not always right ; the people, Mr. Grey, 
are not often wrong." The people carried us 
grandly through the revolution, and on all great 
questions affecting our institutions they have 
been instinctively right. 

On the very question that finally threatened the 
destruction of the Union, the people in the colo- 
nies early anticipated danger. As in 1772, upon 
the petitions from all parts of the colony, the Legis- 
lature of Virginia memorialized the King of Great 
Britain upon the dangers of slavery, and expressed 
the desire that the slave-trade might be abolished. 
The king answered, " That upon pain of his highest 
displeasure the importation of slaves should not 
be obstructed." Yet, in the very same year, 
the highest court of judicature in England de- 
cided the celebrated Somersett case, that no man 
could make a slave of another. While the British 
orators and statesmen indulged in copious rhetoric 
about the freedom of a single slave, and boasted 
that the moment his foot touched the shores of 
England he stood forth redeemed and disen- 
thralled, the government continued to sanction the 



24 ORATION. 

traffic that sent thousands into bondage and en- 
tailed initold misery upon posterity. As indicating 
the opinion of the people of the colonies at the time 
of the adoption of the Federal constitution it may 
be mentioned that there were abolition societies in 
Maryland, Virginia, 'New York, and Pennsylvania. 
James Madison, in the constitutional convention, 
strongly opposed the proposition, coming from a 
noi'thern delegate, for the extension of the time for 
the abolition of the slave-trade. Luther Martin and 
William Pinkney, of Maryland, in the House of 
Delegates, and Mr. Iredell, of North Carolina, were 
all in favor of the early removal of what they con- 
sidered a great danger threatening the republic. 
The latter said, in the State convention of North 
Carolina, "When the entire abolition of slavery 
takes place it will be an event which must be 
pleasing to every generous mind and to every 
friend of human nature." 

The framers of the Declaration of Independence, 
keenly alive to the popular sentiment, intended 
the abolition of the slave-trade in that omitted 
clause, which Mr. Jefferson said "was struck 
out in complaisance, to South Carolina and Georgia, 
and not without tenderness, too, to some of our 
northern brethren, who, though they had few 



JULY4,1885. 25 

slaves themselves, were very considerable carriers 
of them to others." The framers of our consti- 
tutional government, despairing of uniting the 
colonies under the Federal Union, and realizing, 
in the language of Burke, that "All government, 
indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every 
virtue and every prudent act, is founded on com- 
promise and barter," were forced to accept some 
compromises, and recognized the existence of 
slavery, though every Southern man in the Con- 
tinental Congress voted for the ordinance of 
1787, which made all the territory north and west 
of the Ohio river free territory forever. 

Montesquieu wrote: "If a republic is small it is 
destroyed by a foreign power; if it is large it is 
destroyed by internal disorder." But he wrote in 
1747, before the railway and the telegraph had 
annihilated time and space. Our history and 
growth have thus far disproved the truth of this 
assertion, yet we had that within our body politic 
which almost destroyed the republic. 

The debates in Congi-ess of 1820, and the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise, gave us more 
than a generation of fierce and bitter agitation on 
the slavery question. On the one side were urged 
the arguments for the Constitution, the law, and 



26 ORATION. 

logic ; on the other side were humanity and the 
people. The latter prevailed, as they have in 
every great struggle. 

"Ever the truth comes uppermost 
And ever is justice done." 

To accomplish that justice this government was 
shaken to its foundations; and yet, when the war 
came upon ns, where did we find the courageous 
men, the brave and wilhng hearts, ready to die 
in defence of country ? In the ranks of the 
common people. As Wendell Phillips scathingly 
remarked, through all the crisis " there was 
nothing so cowardly in the Northern States as a 
million dollars, except two millions." Do not mis- 
understand me as implying that the men of wealth 
did not respond nobly and generously during the 
war to the call of the government ; yet truth 
compels us to admit that in the beginning they 
had less faith in the government than was dis- 
played by the masses of the people. This govern- 
ment, that, according to the predictions of the 
philosophers and statesmen of Europe, Avas to 
crumble and disappear at the first sign of in- 
ternal disorder, through four years of terrible civil 
war proved itself surprisingly strong. Of the 



JULY4,1885. 27 

23,000,000 of population in the :N'orthern States 
one in eight, or 3,000,000, took up arms in defence 
of the government and the Union. In the last 
yeai- of the war they cheerfully acquiesced in the 
expenditure of |1, 000,000,000, and as cheerfully 
submitted to the increased burden of taxation con- 
sequent upon this debt. And when at length, after 
the long, dark night came the dawn, and the com- 
mander of the Union armies had received the 
surrender of the last ai-my in the field against the 
government, in the hour of national rejoicing the 
assassin's arm struck down the people's ruler, — 
then came the supreme test of this government of 
the people. Under any of the so-called strong 
governments of Europe, had such a catastrophe 
happened, the victorious general of the army would 
have been proclaimed dictator, and have founded 
a line of kings; but in this republic the doctrine 
of the Declaration of Independence was not for- 
gotten: "That all government rests upon the ccm- 
sent of the governed;" and the duly elected Yice- 
President of the United States took the oath of 
office and became President, as presci-ibed by the 
constitution and laws. 

Another inspiring example, that strengthens our 
faith in the people, was given in 1876, when 



28 ORATION. 

both parties claimed to have elected the President: 
one, because they had possession of the govern- 
ment, and desired to retain it; the other, for 
the reason that they had a majority of the 
votes, and had elected their candidate. Was it 
the presence of the commander-in-chief of the 
army, or the concentration of troops at Washing- 
ton, that brought a peaceful solution of the ques- 
tion? ^o! It was the assemblage of the people, 
regardless of party ties, in mass meetings, in all 
the lai'ge cities and towns of the country, that 
by the power of public opinion compelled Congress 
to vote for the bill creating the electoral com- 
mission. The people, by their voice and action, 
demonstrated that love of country was more 
l^otent than love of part}^ Let us not speak 
doubtingly nor disparagingly of the people's 
judgment when we reflect upon the action of 
the fifteen eminent judicial minds that formed the 
commission. Thus far, through the blessings of 
Divine Providence and trust in the people, we 
have maintained our government and kept the 
Union whole. We are not unmindful of the 
dangers that beset our course. We realize " that 
early and provident fear is the mother of safety." 
I do not believe that danger lies in the dii'ection 



JULY 4, 1885. 29 

which so many predict. We must take counsel 
of our experience, and not our prejudice. 

Mr. Curtis, the editor of "Harper's Weekly," 
in speaking- of the dangers threatening the re- 
public, said, in his oration at Concord, in 1875, 
" Massachusetts has a large population, with no 
hereditary traditions connecting them with the 
soil." If he meant to imply that a very large 
portion of the population of Massachusetts do not 
trace their descent from Puritan ancestry, that is 
true. But if he apprehends danger from that 
source, can he have read the history of his 
country aright ? Can he believe that we, who 
have walked the streets of Boston for nearly 
forty years, do not love our native city? — we, 
who remember that in these same streets walked 
Sir Harry Yane, the broadest and most Catho- 
lic man of his time; we, who were familiar with 
the history of Faneuil Hall before we knew our 
alphabet, and knew the story of the Old South 
and the tea in Boston harbor ere we had con- 
quered the multiplication table; whose infant feet 
had time and again passed the old North Church, 
and looked up searchingly at the old tower for 
Paul Revere's lanterns, and ascended Copp's Hill 
to look upon Charlestown ; and, before we were 



30 ORATION. 

out of jackets, stood on Bunker Hill under the 
shadow of the tall gray shaft, and, with uncov- 
ered head and reveren-t mien, looked upon the 
spot where Warren fell; we, who have walked 
these streets with prouder tread, because of 
Sam Adams, and James Otis, the elder Qumcy, 
and sturdy John Adams; we, who have had 
glimpses of the stalwart form of Webster, the 
defender and expounder of the Constitution, who 
have hstened to the pohshed tones of Everett, 
the matchless eloquence of Choate, and heard 
Sumner thunder forth his fierce denunciations of 
the slave power ; and again during the native 
American excitement of the " Fifties," in the face 
of popular clamor defending the rights of all 
citizens under the law; we, who heard in front 
of the Old South Church, in the early da^^s of 
the rebellion, the great tribune of the people, 
Wendell Phillips, "the noblest Koman of them 
all," appealing to all citizens to stand by the 
government in the hour of j)eril. Have we been 
insensible to all these events, or unmindful of 
what these men taught? 'No, thank God ! We 
know no other country. Our love for Boston, 
and Massachusetts, and the Union is as strong 
and lasting as any who claim descent from Puri- 



JULY4,188 5. 31 

tan ancestry. Had the orator so soon forgotten 
the story of Massachusetts in the war of the re- 
bellion? The gallant soldier now on the Supreme 
Bench, whose Puritan lineage cannot be ques- 
tioned, who marched and fought on a score of 
battle-fields with these men, might have quieted 
his fears. He would, aside from his personal 
experience, have pointed to the monuments and 
tablets in memorial halls of the several towns 
and cities in the Commonwealth, on which are 
inscribed the names of the heroic dead who fell 
in the great war for the preservation of the 
Union, and have shown him that these men had 
bequeathed a rich legacy of patriotism to pos- 
terity, and had left traditions to their children, 
and children's children, with which history will 
indissolubly bind tliem to the soil forever. 

A short time since I was in yonder historic 
town of Lexington, inhabited principally by agri- 
culturists. I read upon a monument the names 
of those soldiers of Lexington who gave their 
lives to their country in the war of the Rebel- 
lion. They were twenty in number, and among 
them one may read the names of John O'^N^eil, 
Dennis McMahon and Timothy Leary, — names 
certainly that did not occur in the Mayflower's 



32 ORATION. 

list of passengers, — and so in more than two 
hundred towns in the State may be found such 
records. The rolls at the Adjutant-General's office 
and the navy list afford abundant evidence that 
they have so identified themselves with the his- 
tory of Massachusetts and the Union that they 
have not only traditions, but a record which will 
endure to the end of time. 

There are some of us who still remember the 
first preparations for the great civil war. Men 
were not inquiring about family traditions then. 
Are you for the Union? Are you willing, if 
necessary, to give your life to the cause? We 
remember one stalwart regiment that went to the 
field with no hereditary traditions, and one can 
read to-day on the monument at Gettysburg, 
erected to their memory, these w^ords: — 

The Ninth Regiment of Massachusetts volunteers served during 
three years' campaigns in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, 
and was in forty-two engagements, including the following, 
viz. : Peninsular campaign, Hanover Court-House, Seven days' 
battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, 
Mine Run, Wilderness campaign. 

What a host of patriotic memories are recalled 
by these names, even to us, the cool lookers-on 



JULY4,1885. 33 

of a later generation! To them who participated 
in all their dire disaster, as well as flush of vic- 
tory, think you they hold no traditions that bind 
them to this country of their adojjtion? What 
more eloquent eulogium can be paid to this regi- 
ment than the concluding line of the inscription 
on the monument: — 

"Whole number of casualties, 863 "! 

I remember at Chancellorsville in the Twenty- 
eighth Massachusetts Regiment every commissioned 
officer was killed or disabled; and yet it returned 
again and again to the onset, under command of 
its sergeant-major. I recall that 13th day of De- 
cember, 1862, in fi-ont of Fredericksburg, French's 
Division was almost annihilated. Of Meagher's 
Brigade of 1,200 stalwart men only 200 were 
mustered at roll-call at the close of the battle. One 
thousand of their companions in arms were left 
dead or wounded on the field. We call to mind 
one incident in that day's fight particularly honor- 
able and glorious to Massachusetts. The Twenty- 
first Regiment of volunteers had marched out in line 
of battle. One after another of its gallant stand- 
ard-bearers had been shot down until stepped 
forth Sergeant Thomas Plunkett. In the fierce 



34 ORATION. 

storm of shot and shell both arms are shattered, 
but, claspmg- the flag in the reeking stumps, 
blinded by agony, his warm blood saturated the 
flag he saved with honor. He walked our streets 
until a few months ago, when he joined so many 
of his comrades who had gone before. The city 
of Worcester mourned him as one of her illustri- 
ous dead, and honored him as one of the bravest 
of the brave ; and yet we are told men such as 
he cannot hope to leave traditions which may bind 
them or theirs to the soil. Time will tell some 
few years hence, when we, answering a younger 
generation, asking the history of his monument, 
tell them we knew him in life, had spoken with 
him; that we had seen him bearing so bravely 
and patiently those scars and mutilations that an 
emperor might have envied ; and if the youth should 
have exclaimed, " Oh that I could have seen the 
heroic original! " and, with interested and upturned 
gaze, should ask who was the original of that 
statue, we might answer, " A poor immigrant 
boy; one who had no hereditary traditions that 
bound him to the soil." Yet, so long as will 
spring in human hearts a responsive throb at the 
rehearsal of brave deeds, his fame will be secure 
in Massachusetts. 



JULY4,1885. 35 

Men who have made great sacrifices to main- 
tam a government will not willingly permit its 
destruction. The danger to our government does 
not lie ■ in that direction. We are in more 
danger from the indifference, and, to speak 
plainly, paradoxical as it may appear, from the 
ignorance of the so-called wealthy and cultured 
classes than from the common people. My ex- 
perience has taught me that, as a rule, the 
masses vote more understandingly than those who, 
by the accident of birth or fortune, assume to be 
their betters. Watch men listen to the discus- 
sions at clubs when men of wealth or culture 
and respectability meet, — men who are supposed 
to represent what is best in our American life. 
What are the topics of conversation? You may 
learn who has the oldest Madeira in his cellar; 
the vintage of claret on the dinner-table; the 
best method of cooking a duck; the names of 
some of the painters and sculptors; maybe some 
superficial observations on art; the newest gossip 
about the opera-singers; who wrote the latest 
novel, or was the winner of the Derby. The 
saving remnant may speculate on the doctrines 
of evolution, and discuss the unknowable cause. 
But let an earnest man, whose necessities com- 



36 ORATION. 

pel him to spend his days in manual labor, yet 
desires to keep abreast of the times, inquire from 
one of these gentlemen, What is this bill that has 
passed the Legislature in relation to the limitation 
of taxation in cities? What are the main pro- 
visions of the new city charter; how does it affect 
citizens generally? I heard something in relation 
to a bill regulating naturalization; can you give 
me any information as to the changes made in 
the present laws? Who has charge of spending 
the ten millions annually assessed upon the citizens 
of Boston? What steps must I take to exercise 
the franchise? 

Gentlemen of the clubs, how many of you 
could give intelligent answers to these questions? 

Do you suppose that any form of government 
can exist if the brains and capital neglect their 
most important duties? If there has been a low 
tone in the public service; if there have been 
incompetency and corruption in public life, have 
you not, by your indifference and silence, stood 
by and consented? Go into the workshops of 
the mechanics; attend the meetings of the labor 
unions, the temperance, charitable, and benefit 
associations; listen, and you will hear the keen- 
est discussions of men and measures. The effect 



JULY4,1885. 37 

of the tariff upon labor and necessaries of life; 
the leader's ability; that leader's honesty; the 
effect of this legislative enactment upon local 
rights; the policy of the new ministry in Eng- 
land; its possible effect upon our federal relations, 
— all questions of public interest. Every man 
feels that he is a citizen, and has an interest in 
the government. If, now and then, demagogues 
mislead them, it is but for the moment, and 
you will find that the demagogues took advan- 
tage of some real grievance which your igno- 
rance or indifference failed to notice and remedy. 
To quote Jeremy Taylor: "I cannot but think 
as Aristotle (Lib. 6) did of Thales and Anax- 
agoras, that they may be learned but not wise, 
or wise but not prudent, when they are ignorant 
of such things as are profitable to them. For, 
suppose men know the wonders of nature, and 
the subtleties of metaphysics, and operations 
mathematical, yet they cannot be prudent who 
spend themselves wholly on unprofitable and 
ineffective contemplation." — " Suppose the men of 
character and influence perform their duty," you 
may reply, " are there not other changes that 
threaten this republic?" Yes! "Eternal vigilance 
is the price of liberty." The great French writer, 



38 ORATION. 

whom I have before quoted, wrote in 1830: "I 
am of the opinion that the manufacturing aris- 
tocracy which is growing up under our eyes is 
one of the harshest that ever existed in the 
world; but, at the same time, it is one of the 
most confined and least dangerous. [N^evertheless 
the friends of democracy should keep their eyes 
anxiously fixed in this direction, for, if ever a 
permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy 
again penetrate into the world, it may be pre- 
dicted that this is the gate by which they will 
enter." 

We know in Massachusetts and IS'ew England 
that much of our discontent has come witli our 
increase in manufactures. While the people are 
benefited by large manufactories, and division 
of labor, making many articles much cheaper, 
the individual laborer has been correspondingly 
degraded. When manufacturing enterprises were 
under the control of individuals there existed a 
personal interest and an individual sympathy 
between the employer and the employe. But 
since the increase in corporations the man feels 
that he is looked upon as a piece of machinery, 
of no use except to earn dividends for those 
who live in distant towns or cities, with no sym- 



JULY4,1885. 39 

pathy for liim, or interest in the local affairs of 
his town, except to have their manufacturing' 
property bear as small a portion of the town 
tax as possible. Watch carefully, then, the atti- 
tude of representatives in the Legislature, and 
be not unmindful that corporations are by their 
very organizations grasping and controlling. A 
still greater danger than the manufacturing cor- 
porations is the great power concentrated in the 
hands of a few men, under the name of railroad 
corporations. 

The founders of this republic wisely abolished 
the law of primogeniture. Could they have 
foreseen the coming and the growth of these 
great corporations, and their power to control 
the land by fixing the prices of the products of 
the soil, they would have guarded us in that 
direction. We are not too late, however, to pro- 
vide, by appi'opriate legislation in our several 
States, that while every man shall be entitled to 
the jiroducts of his labor and his accumulated 
earnings during his life, the public safety, how- 
ever, and the greater good of the greatest num- 
ber demand that he shall not select one single 
individual in his family and bequeath to him his 
whole fortune, if in personal property. If the 



40 ORATION. 

laws limiting the descent and acquisition of real 
property have been wise and beneficial, — and who 
doubts that they have been, — then the time has 
come when there is much greater need for con- 
trolling the insane ambition of men to make their 
heirs great and powei-ful, by placing in the hands 
of a single person an enormous fortune, which 
engenders discontent, and inevitably tends to cor- 
ruption, and threatens the safety of our insti- 
tutions. We cannot too jealously guard these 
institutions and the principles of our government. 
The chief provisions of our Constitution are, 
absolute freedom of religion; the right of the 
citizen to keep and bear arms; compensation for 
private property taken for i:)ublic uses; trial by 
jury according to common law, and that all 
powers not delegated to the United States, nor 
prohibited by the Constitution to the States, are 
reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people. One of the rights reserved to the people 
was the right to manage their local affairs, and 
to be secure in theii- chartered rights. This 
principle was insisted upon as early as the time 
of King John, and was the eighth article of the 
famous Magna Charta; it was always held sacred 
in Massachusetts until the Legislature of 1885 



J U L Y 4 , 1 8 8 5 . 41 

struck a blow at the principle which underlies 
our whole system of government. When Boston 
cannot govern herself we may well despair of 
the rej)iiblic. We all know that an overwhelm- 
ing majority of the peoj^le of Boston are intelli- 
gent, industrious, law-a])iding citizens, capable of 
managing their own local affairs; and when they 
want legislation they have still the right to 
assemble in mass meeting, and if they have a 
grievance demanding legislative redress they will 
make that grievance known. 

Law has not an atom of strength only so far 
as public opinion endorses it. Do the men who 
propose to change the heads of our civil army 
suppose that that small force of eight hundred 
men is the power which keeps this city safe? 
Absurd dreamers ! Your life, goods, and good 
name rest on the law-abiding mood and self- 
respect of the people who walk the streets of 
Boston, and not upon the paltry force of eight 
hundred men. We have had narrow-minded 
legislation in Massachusetts in the past, but the 
sober second thought of the people caused its 
repeal; and I have no doubt that ere many years 
the men engaged in the attempt to strike down 
local self-government in Boston will be as 



42 ORATION. 

thoroughly ashamed of then* action as men are 
to acknowledge to-day that they were members 
of the hnow-nothing Legislature of 1854: and 
1855. 

The great danger to our republic, and perhaps 
the greatest danger which many see, is the con- 
centration of population in the great cities of the 
Union. 

At the close of the war of the Revolution not 
more than three per cent, of our population lived 
in the cities. To-day twenty per cent, of our 
people are in the cities. The problem is to 
govern them wisely. 

The pessimists see nothing but the inevitable 
destruction of our government from the masses 
in our cities. 

Many men, with more property than judgment, 
want the poorer citizens disfranchised and the 
suffrage limited. This can never be done. If it 
could it would not remedy the evil. Revolutions 
do not move backwards. The State of Rhode 
Island has a property qualification for voters, yet 
it is notorious that in her elections she is one of 
the most corrupt States in the Union. Governors 
and seuators have shamelessly bought their elec- 
tions. No, fellow-citizens, there must be no dis- 



JULY 4, 1885. 43 

franchise meiit. Trust the people. Corruption has 
not vitiated the masses. It has poisoned our 
legislative bodies to some extent : we must begin 
our reforms there. 

Carefully examine all assessments of taxes ; criti- 
cally scrutinize all expenditures of the public 
moneys, and rigidly investigate all charges of 
malfeasance in pubUc office ; visit all persons 
found guilty of dishonesty with the severest 
penalties, and render them forever incapable of 
holding positions of public trust; and let the 
quality of our condemnation be not strained, but 
be visited "upon him that gives as well as him 
that takes." Hold to this course steadfastly, and 
you will strike at the root of the evil in the 
government of our great cities. 

The people are rightly inclined, and mean to 
vote for honest and competent men. The ten- 
dency in our cities for twenty years, on the part 
of our men of culture and wealth, has been to 
place themselves beyond the people. Our public 
men, and writers on public matters, are continu- 
ally firing over their heads, and addressing some 
constituency which has no existence except in 
their own imaginations. 

The people in cities are, like the people every- 



44 ORATION. 

where, human, and very human; and, to use Mi*. 
Lincohi's words, if we hope to govern them wisely 
" we must keep near to the common people." Power 
being in the people, that they may use it dis- 
creetly, our first duty is to provide proper educa- 
tion. A distinguished historian has said : " We 
have two educations, — one from teachers, the other 
we give ourselves." The last is the principal 
education of the masses. They acquire it by con- 
tact with the world, take much of it in, as it were, 
through the pores. Is it not impoi'tant, then, that 
men claiming to be educated should be able to 
impart to the people information upon subjects 
vitally affecting their well-being, as well as the 
interests of the whole community? The younger 
generation should be especially educated in Amer- 
ican history. 

Frederick the Great said to his son's tutor: 
" Xot too much of the classics, but thoroughly 
educate in the history of Eurojjean nations for 
the last one hundred years." 

Yet book-learning is not everything. Ask the 
judges of our courts, who, in their turn, hold the 
criminal terms. Who are the criminals, — the immi- 
grants of the first generation, possessed of little 
book learning ? — and they will answer : l^o, the 



JULY4,1885. 45 

generation born upon the soil, having had the 
advantages, to a certain extent, of onr piibhc 
schools. It is not my province to criticise; I call 
attention " to results. But can any thinking man 
hope to maintain a government dependent upon 
the votes of the people, if, in the system of edu- 
cation, the youth receives no moi-al training? I 
believe, with Thomas a Kempis, '^ It is better to 
feel compunction than know the definition thereof." 
Fellow-citizens, I have endeavored to call at- 
tention to the remarkable growth of our countrv, 
to the strength and weakness of our form of 
government. I think the candid critic will admit, 
after a careful survey of the history of the last 
centuiy, that this government of the people has 
many advantages for our country over that of 
any other form in the world. We are now, in 
Massachusetts, 2,000,000 of people. During the 
last forty years a great change has taken place 
in the character of our population. In 1840 only 
84,31S of the population were of foreign birth. 
In 1880 there were 443,402 persons of foreign 
birth, and, reckoning those of the first and 
second generations born upon the soil, I am 
sure that I do not exaggerate, when I state 
that half the population of this State to-day does 



46 ORATION. 

not trace its origin to Puritan ancestry, but are 
of a later emigration. One of our first duties 
is to assimilate our population. We live under 
a government where majorities rule. This fact 
Ave must recognize. If any cherish the delusion 
that any class or body have an hereditaiy right 
to govern, that delusion must be abandoned. 
Demagogues and self-seekers must be ruthlessly 
crushed. 'No man has a right to claim recognition 
or public office for what he has achieved in 
some other land, before he became an American 
citizen. Merit, fitness, and fidelity to the re- 
public should be the test, and we cannot too 
severely condemn those who oppose men emi- 
nently qualified because of their i-ace or religion. 
True statesmanship seeks the unity of the 
people of the Commonwealth. We ought not to 
feel discouraged if in our legislative bodies some 
men have been corrupted by the use of money, 
and have proved false to their oaths and to their 
trust. We do not forget that Louis XIY. had 
the courtiers of King James under his pay; that 
Lord Bacon disgraced his high office by accept- 
ing a bribe; that the noble government of Eng- 
land has not hesitated in any emergency to buy 
governors, parliaments, and provincial assemblies 



JULY4,1885. 47 

at wholesale. Despair not; there is in our 
country a strong undercurrent of virtue, and a 
growing public sentiment, that inspires us with 
faith that the people are being aroused to that 
proper public spirit which will insure the per- 
petuity of our institutions. And now, fellow- 
citizens, on this day of days, let us not depart 
from this place without a grateful appreciation 
of what we owe to Almighty God for the bless- 
ings and benefits bestowed upon us; and when 
we reflect that throughout this great country 
fifty-five millions of people are rejoicing with us 
for the peace, prosperity, and happiness which 
they enjoy, there should come to us a solemn 
reminder of the duties which have devolved 
upon us as citizens of the Republic. "I have 
an ambition," says Lord Chatham: "it is the 
ambition of delivering to my posterity those 
rights of freedom which I have inherited from 
my ancestors." Such an ambition should be ours. 
We can never pay the debt we ow^e to the gen- 
erations that have preceded us, but the genera- 
tions to come will hold us responsible for the 
sacred trust delegated to our keeping. If we 
desire to honor the memory of those men who 
in the first epoch won the great chartei*, and 



48 ORATION. 

made possible the next great epoch of the 
Declaration of Independence, let us cherish self- 
government, remembering that self-government 
politically depends upon self-government person- 
ally. Let us recall to-day, with grateful hearts, 
the memories of the soldiers and statesmen of 
the Revolution, who perilled so much for the idea 
which this day commemorates ; nor should we 
be unmindful of the country of Lafayette, De 
Grasse, and Rochambeau, that came so gener- 
ously to our assistance and made our victory 
certain. 

And while to-day we cherish the memory of 
the men of the Revolution we will not foi'get 
those heroes of the second war for the Union. 
We rejoice that liuman bondage no longer exists 
in all our territoi-y; and, now that the civil war 
is long over, we forget all that is gloomy and 
terrible in our history, for we are assured that, 
in the sympathy that we feel for the commander 
of the Union armies in his great affliction, the 
sorrow is as genuine on the southern as on the 
northern side of the Potomac, and we realize 
once more that we are Americans all. So long 
as we cherish and honor the names of Wash- 
ington, Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln, and the 



JULY4,1885. 49 

principles which their Uves exemplified, the Amer- 
ican Union is secure, and there will arise from 
the hearth-stones of a grateful, happy people, 
on each succeeding Fourth day of July, at the 
rising of the sun and the going down thereof, 
an earnest, heart-felt prayer of thanksgiving and 
praise, and far above the sounds of other rejoic- 
ings, the ringing of bells and the booming of 
cannon, will be heard the fervent exclamations: 
Ood preserve to us the heritage of the fathers! 
God save the Amei^ican Union! 



^i, 



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